UK

Aldi announces pay rises for staff

Aldi has announced new pay rates, saying it will be the first supermarket to guarantee all store and warehouse workers earn at least £12 an hour.

The minimum rate will increase by 40p an hour, and by 70p to £13.55 within the M25, with the increases taking effect from February.

Aldi said it is investing £67m in pay, adding it is also the only supermarket to offer paid breaks, which for the average store worker is worth more than £900 a year.

Giles Hurley, chief executive of Aldi UK and Ireland, said: “Just as we promise to provide the best value to our customers, we are also committed to being the highest-paying supermarket in the sector.”

Aldi is the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket and has more than 1,000 stores, 11 regional distribution centres and 40,000 employees across Britain.

Aldi staff will all earn at least £12 an hour - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Games Workshop hands staff £2,500 bonus as half-year profits rise 12%

Sarah Butler
Thu, 7 December 2023 

Photograph: May James/Reuters

The fantasy figurine retailer Games Workshop is handing its shop workers, model makers, designers and support staff a £2,500 Christmas bonus, £1,000 more than a year ago, after half-year profits rose more than 12%.

The Nottingham-based company behind the popular table-top gaming series Warhammer and Lord of the Rings figures said its workers would split a £7.5m bonus pool, up from £4.5m a year ago.

Games Workshop, which runs about 530 stores, said it was increasing the bonus as it expected half-year profits to be at least £94m as sales rose 9% to £247m. There was strong growth in its core gaming sales but a drop in licensing income.

Started nearly 50 years ago by three schoolfriends, Games Workshop enjoyed a boom during the pandemic and has continued to thrive despite tough times on the high street as hobbies and small treats that can be enjoyed at home have benefited from the cost of living squeeze.

Analysts said the company had recorded a slowdown in the second quarter of its financial year but had enjoyed the benefits of a strong first quarter helped by the launch of the 10th edition of its Warhammer 40,000 game, which features characters such as Space Marines and the squid-like Neurotyrant.

Shares in the group fell almost 11% to just under £95 as Andrew Wade, an analyst at Jefferies, said investors were likely to be disappointed that the business had only delivered sales and profits in line with expectations.

In the summer, analysts upgraded forecasts after strong early sales of the latest 40,000 edition while the cost of shipping goods and some materials fell. Wade said it appeared there had been “a pull-forward of demand” in the summer and Games Workshop now faced tougher trading conditions.

Warhammer maker Games Workshop pays staff £2,500 bonus — but £450m knocked off market cap as shares tumble

Daniel O'Boyle
Thu, 7 December 2023 


Warhammer maker Games Workshop has agreed a right deal with Amazon studios 

(Games Workshop/PA)

Warhammer maker Games Workshop is to pay all its staff a £2,500 Christmas bonus as half-year profits rose to nearly £100 million.

The payout, a combined £7.5 million, is up from £1,500 per employee last year. It comes as profit grew by 12.4% to £94 million, on sales of £235 million, also up on last year.

But investors, who have become used to upgrades, were not impressed. Jefferies analysts Andrew Wade and Grace Gilberg flagged “markedly slower” growth in the second quarter.

Peel Hunt analysts were less negative, saying that the numbers were “consistent with our full-year forecasts”.

The shares tumbled by as much as 13% to 9224p, knocking £450 million off the multi-billion-pound company's market cap. That’s 21% off their July peak, but still up more than 200% over the last five years and 20 times the price they were trading at in 2016.

The bonus is enough for a fan of Games Workshop’s flagship — and famously expensive — Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game to build the two-foot tall Mars Pattern Warlord Titan and equip it with a pair of power claws and a set of laser blasters.

Sold in parts, the figurine costs £1,674.50 to assemble and paint. It’s the most pricey model listed on the Warhammer website, which describes the Titan as “among the most ancient and feared of the Imperium's war machines”.

“Forged on the Red Planet itself, it is worshipped and venerated as the Omnissiah's will incarnate and each god-engine is encased in layered armour and powerful void shielding, and armed with weapons that are capable of reducing entire armies to ash,” the Warhammer website reads.

Tesla loses legal challenge against Swedish strikes

Chris Price
Thu, 7 December 2023 

Emma Hansson, chairman of IF Metall, stands on strike outside Tesla's Service Centre in Segeltorp in Stockholm, Sweden - Jessica Gow/TT News Agency/via REUTERS

Tesla has lost a legal battle with Sweden’s postal service as its fight with Scandinavian trade unions escalates.

A Swedish court said postal operator PostNord does not need to deliver licence plates to Tesla that are being blocked by the postal service’s workers, for the time being.

The latest twist in a fight over collective bargaining agreements comes as Tesla is facing growing pressure in Sweden, Norway and Denmark from unions.

They are backing mechanics who work at Sweden’s IF Metall, who went on strike on October 27 demanding a collective agreement with the company.

A large Danish pension fund on Wednesday said it would sell its holdings in Tesla over its refusal to enter into such deals.

The court’s decision comes after Tesla sued PostNord as workers stopped delivering plates for its new cars in a sympathy strike, and is an interim decision ahead of the court’s final ruling.

Tesla’s Scandinavian union rows prompt Danish pension fund to sell stake in protest

One of Denmark’s largest pension funds has dumped its shares in Tesla because of the carmaker’s failure to agree collective bargaining agreements with its workers.

PensionDanmark, which is known for prioritising climate change in its investment strategy, said that it had attempted to influence Tesla’s union policy “directly and coordinated with other shareholders”, but without success.

“In the light of the conflict spreading to Denmark and Tesla’s latest and very categorical denial to reach collective agreements in any country, we have reached the conclusion that we as investors for the time being are unlikely to influence the company. And therefore, we are placing Tesla on our exclusion list,” the company said.

The pension manager’s exclusion list is dominated by fossil fuel businesses, such as ExxonMobil, Gazprom and China’s CNOOC. The addition of Tesla, while continuing to include other companies known to discourage union membership such as Amazon and Starbucks, is an indication of just how acrimonious the fight has become between unions and Tesla in Denmark, Sweden, Norway.

The row began with 130 Swedish mechanics, responsible for servicing Teslas, who wanted the American carmaker to follow the Nordic norm whereby unions and employers jointly set wages and working conditions. Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, described their decision to strike as “insane”.

Dockworkers quickly joined in secondary action against Tesla, refusing to unload the Tesla cars at Sweden’s ports, while postal and courier businesses refused to deliver Tesla licence plates.

Earlier this week, Denmark’s largest trade union, 3F, joined the boycott of Tesla, with its dock workers and drivers refusing to transport Tesla vehicles. Norway’s largest private sector union, Fellesforbundet, has also pledged to join the boycott.

“Even if you are one of the richest people in the world, you can’t just make your own rules,” Jan Villadsen of the 3F union, said. “We have some agreements on the labour market in the Nordics, and you have to comply with them if you want to do business here.”

The decision by PensionDanmark to sell its Tesla investment, reportedly worth £46m, comes despite the pensions company’s commitment to foster greener technology.

Torben Möger Pedersen, its chief executive, said in 2021: “We are in a hurry. There is no time to waste. We have to address climate change now, and what is most needed is massive private investment in the green transition.”

In 2020, it pledged to cut the carbon emissions of its portfolio by at least 22pc by 2025.

Tesla was approached for comment.

A placard from the IF Metall union outside the Tesla service center in Segeltorp, Sweden, on Tuesday - Erik Flyg/Bloomberg

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

UK to remain global centre of ‘dirty money’ without offshore registers, MPs say

Rob Davies
Thu, 7 December 2023 

Photograph: Javier Fergo

Britain will remain the global centre of “dirty money” unless ministers revive stalled plans for public registers of who owns companies based in offshore havens such as the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) and Jersey, campaigners and senior MPs have said.

The veteran anti-corruption campaigner Dame Margaret Hodge MP said it was a matter of national security to do away with the secrecy offered by the 10 inhabited overseas territories and three crown dependencies.

In 2020, the government gave the overseas territories, which include the BVIs, Cayman Islands and Bermuda, a deadline of December 2023 to introduce public registers of corporate ownership. Only Gibraltar has done so.


Hodge called on the government to issue an “order in council” to compel them to comply and also suggested the crown dependencies could be forced to follow suit, a proposal that would test longstanding constitutional convention and law.

Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man had acted dishonourably by reneging on their own promise to introduce public registers, she said. Jersey said it exchanged information with authorities around the world “which it considers the most effective approach in the global fight against financial crime”.

But Hodge, who chairs a cross-party group of MPs examining corruption and tax, said that an “epidemic of tax avoidance, tax evasion and economic crime flourishes in an environment of secrecy”.

“If we are serious about trying to eliminate dirty money from Britain, we must have public registers so that we can … follow the money,” she said.

She cited the role of UK-linked tax havens in investigations published by the Guardian and international partners, including the Pandora Papers, Paradise Papers, and the Cyprus Confidential leaks that were published last month.

The Foreign Office minister David Rutley said the government was discussing an interim measure that would see offshore havens allow people with a “legitimate interest” to access records from next year, in line with the position across most of the EU. Those likely to be regarded as having a legitimate right to access records include the media and campaign groups.

He also promised to pursue fully public registers.

“The train is leaving the station, we know the direction of our travel,” he said.

UK-linked offshore havens deprived 79 countries of £250bn – equivalent to more than 20 years of the UK’s foreign aid budget, during the three decades leading up to 2018, according to the anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International.

The government appears to have accepted the need to crack down, but ministers could find themselves on a collision course with offshore centres because of the arcane nature of the UK’s constitutional relationships.

The government can order overseas territories to adopt public registers but Britain has typically not sought to exert control on crown dependencies, which are possessions of the crown rather than part of the UK.

The three dependencies tentatively committed to setting up public registers in 2019, once the European Union had reviewed its own plans.

The European court of justice ruled late last year that unrestricted public access to such information was a disproportionate infringement on individuals’ privacy.

The dependencies paused their plans in light of the ruling and have said they are taking legal advice.

In a written answer to a question posed by Hodge, the junior home office minister Tom Tugendhat said the court’s ruling should have no effect.

He said the government was “satisfied with the lawfulness of our own publicly accessible registers and continues to believe that [they] could legally implement public registers of their own”.

Britain threw its weight behind public registers in 2014 when the then prime minister David Cameron urged the crown dependencies and overseas territories to follow the UK’s example by publishing corporate ownership data.

MPs including Hodge and Labour’s Meg Hillier said Cameron’s recent appointment as foreign secretary presented an opportunity to apply renewed pressure.

UK

Abu Dhabi-backed Telegraph bidder rejects plan to ease press freedom fears

Christopher Williams
Fri, 8 December 2023 

telegraph newspaper

The prospective owners of The Telegraph have rejected a plan to reduce the share of Abu Dhabi cash behind the takeover and ease concerns over press freedom.

Jeff Zucker, the former CNN chief leading RedBird IMI, has ruled out restructuring or bringing in new investors to appease regulators, insiders said.

Some 75pc of the $1bn (£790m) fund is provided by International Media Investments (IMI), an Abu Dhabi vehicle controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the Manchester City owner and vice-president of the United Arab Emirates. The rest is derived from RedBird, a US private equity firm with institutional and family office backing.

It is understood The Telegraph’s independent directors proposed that reducing IMI’s interest to a minority or even 25pc of The Telegraph’s £600m price would help them win a crucial recommendation from Ofcom to the Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer.

However, multiple sources confirmed that Mr Zucker firmly rejected the idea.

Bidders in an auction that has since been abandoned had been warned that any more than 25pc funding from the Gulf would not be acceptable to the Government.

Multiple sources confirmed that Mr Zucker firmly rejected the idea of reducing IMI’s interest in The Telegraph - Clara Molden for The Daily Telegraph

RedBird IMI’s subsequent ambush via a complex debt transaction that would leave The Telegraph three-quarters backed by Abu Dhabi has prompted legal questions which are still being examined by rivals and officials.

An Ofcom team is investigating the impact of the proposed RedBird IMI takeover on the public interest in free expression and the accurate presentation of news.

It is due to deliver a report to Ms Frazer by January 26 with advice on how to proceed. She will then decide whether to allow the takeover to go ahead, negotiate remedies to protect press freedom with RedBird IMI, or refer the controversy to the Competition and Markets Authority for deeper scrutiny.

RedBird IMI has been exploring ideas such as an editorial board in the hope that such “behavioural” remedies may satisfy Ofcom. However, regulators tend to prefer “structural” remedies such as the dilution proposed by The Telegraph’s independent directors as they are viewed as more robust and do not require ongoing monitoring.

The Telegraph’s independent directors, led by chairman Mike McTighe, were put in place by Lloyds Banking Group when it seized control in June by appointing receivers.

Ofcom will deliver a report to Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer by January 26 with advice on how to proceed with the takeover - Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu

After the Barclay family repaid an overdue £1.2bn debt on Monday using cash borrowed from RedBird IMI and directly from IMI, the receivership ended and the bank withdrew.

However, the directors were kept in place by a legal order issued by Ms Frazer, as well as under a commercial agreement between RedBird IMI and the Barclay family, who are barred from influencing The Telegraph as a result.

It is understood that based on conversations with the Barclay family and the former Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi, RedBird IMI had expected to be able to convert its loan to ownership of The Telegraph almost immediately with relatively low regulatory hurdles to clear.

Instead, the deal is held in limbo for regulatory scrutiny which the media analysts Enders have said could take until 2025 including a break for a general election.

Insiders said the reality of a potentially lengthy regulatory process had damaged trust between RedBird IMI and the Barclay family. Another denied this insisting the relationship was strong and that Ms Frazer’s intervention had been obviously inevitable, however.

A spokesman for the Barclay family declined to comment. Mr McTighe and RedBird IMI also declined to comment.

Mr Zucker has previously said he is committed to editorial independence for The Telegraph and that concerns about the involvement of Abu Dhabi were misplaced. He also pledged investment in growth and support for the existing newsroom team.

In recent days Mr Zucker has been contacting MPs and other influential figures to continue making his case.

WW3.0

UN Security Council debates escalating Guyana-Venezuela row

Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS
Sat, 9 December 2023

Guyana's leader Irfaan Ali has described Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's statements as a 'direct threat' to his country 

The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors on Friday to discuss the fast-escalating row between South American neighbors Venezuela and Guyana over a disputed oil-rich region.

World leaders called for calm as Venezuela decried joint US-Guyana military exercises as a "provocation" and vowed to push ahead with its "recovery" of the Essequibo region, which both neighbors claim as their own.

Guyana says Venezuela's move on Essequibo, disputed for more than a century, "threatens international peace and security".

Delegates left Friday's meeting -- which took place at Guyana's request -- with roses offered by Ecuador, chair of the Council this month. None made statements to reporters.

Fears of the conflict blowing up have deepened after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government held a controversial referendum Sunday on the fate of Essequibo.

Two days after the vote, Maduro proposed a bill to create a Venezuelan province in Essequibo and ordered the state oil company to issue licenses for extracting crude in the region.

The region has been administered by Guyana for more than a century and is the subject of border litigation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

It makes up about two-thirds of Guyanese territory and is home to 125,000 of the country's 800,000 citizens, but is also claimed by Venezuela.

Controversy has simmered since 2015 when US oil giant ExxonMobil, operating under licenses from Guyana, discovered vast oil reserves in the area.

"Guyana and ExxonMobil will have to sit down with us face-to-face sooner rather than later," Maduro said Friday during a ceremony in front of the Miraflores presidential palace, where he showed a map of Venezuela that included Essequibo as official territory.

Washington provoked an angry response from Caracas on Thursday by announcing via the embassy in Georgetown that it would hold joint "flight operations within Guyana" as part of "routine engagement and operations to enhance security partnership" with its ally.

"This unfortunate provocation by the United States in favor... of ExxonMobil in Guyana is another step in the wrong direction," Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said on social media.

In response, Guyanese Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo said Venezuela "is not going to succeed, now or ever" at taking the region.

"Every single movement that Venezuelans make, particularly in the proximity of our borders, is tracked, every single one of them," he said.

- 'Unwavering support' -

In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva voiced "growing concern" Thursday about the tensions on his country's northern border.

Lula told a summit of South America's Mercosur bloc: "If there's one thing we don't want here in South America, it's war."

The Brazilian army said Wednesday it was reinforcing its presence in two northern cities.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron also warned Venezuela not to take "unilateral action" in the dispute. Guyana is an English-speaking former colony of Britain and the Netherlands.

Russia, a close ally of Venezuela's Maduro, added its voice Friday, urging a "peaceful solution."

The 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom) also called for a "de-escalation of the conflict and appropriate dialogue" as well as the "avoidance of the use or threat of force".

Guyana insists Essequibo's frontier was determined by an arbitration panel in 1899.

But Venezuela claims the Essequibo River to the region's east forms a natural border recognized as far back as 1777.

In Sunday's referendum, Venezuelans were asked whether citizenship should be granted to the English-speaking people of a new "Guyana Esequiba State" and "consequently incorporating said state on the map of Venezuelan territory."

Officials in Caracas said 95 percent of voters supported the measures.

Analysts say the referendum and the rise in nationalist rhetoric is an attempt to distract attention ahead of elections in 2024 when Maduro will seek a new term amid an economic crisis and dwindling oil production at home.

"It was like a kind of trial balloon ahead of the presidential elections" to measure the "capacity to mobilize and try to fine-tune their strategy for 2024," said Mariano de Alba, an advisor to the International Crisis Group.

burs-mlr/acb/dhw/dva

UK

Unions to step up opposition to new law on strikes

Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent
Fri, 8 December 2023 



The Government’s controversial new law to provide minimum levels of service during strikes will be attacked on Saturday at a special conference attended by leaders of the country’s biggest trade unions.

The TUC has called its first special national conference in more than 40 years as it steps up opposition to new regulations announced by ministers following 18 months of strikes by hundreds of thousands of workers over pay and conditions.

Metro mayors and council leaders from across the UK have warned that the new law will make disputes harder to solve and lead to more frequent and longer strikes, the TUC announced.

The mayors of London, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Bristol and North of Tyne, and council leaders of Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield, have joined forces to issue a “scathing statement” on minimum service levels, said the TUC.

The leaders of towns and cities are said to have pledged to “work with trades unions and employers to explore every possible option to avert any prospect of work notices being issued in our areas”.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “This statement from mayors and council leaders across Britain is the latest in a long list of scathing criticism for minimum service levels.

“Employers, politicians and civil society organisations have all condemned this legislation. It’s little wonder so many are opposed to these new laws. They are a deliberate attempt to restrict the right to strike – a fundamental British liberty.”

He said Saturday’s conference will send a strong message to ministers and employers that unions believe the new law is unworkable, unnecessary and illegal.

“We will set out what we will do to resist this legislation and to make sure it is never used to undermine a strike,” he told the PA news agency.

“We will not rest until the law is repealed and we are determined to explore every avenue of non-compliance.”

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), will tell the conference: “The mass strike wave that our union and others played a major role in is still continuing in various sectors and smaller, regional industrial disputes are still ongoing throughout the country.

“Although the rate of inflation is not climbing as fast as before, there is still real demand amongst working people for pay justice in the workplace and a continuing struggle for decent terms and conditions.

“In the lead-up to Christmas when several unions still have strike mandates, including our own on London Underground, Government ministers have been stepping up their rhetoric that they won’t allow strike action to disrupt Christmas.

“Importantly, the Government has left the issue of work notices to the discretion of employers and it will only apply at the moment to Department for Transport mandated train operators, ambulance workers and other groups of workers deemed “key” such as border force staff.

“It is vital that unions come together to pressure the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and the regional mayors to make a pledge never to issue a work notice if there is a breakdown in industrial relations.

“Isolating Westminster politically will show that the Tory Government alone wants minimum service legislation implemented.”

Mr Lynch said the RMT will be writing to employers calling on them not to use the so-called work notices to ensure a minimum service level, warning that if they fail to give satisfactory guarantees the union will have to consider having industrial disputes with them.

He added: “I have been equally clear that RMT will not willingly comply with this legislation and will support in whatever ways are practical, other unions who want to engage in acts of tactical non-compliance.”

Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This is one of the worst attacks on workers’ rights in living memory. Rather than attacking our right to strike, ministers should be addressing why people take strike action.”

Rail minister Huw Merriman said: “Strikes cause stress and disruption to passengers and businesses and, whilst there is no silver bullet to mitigating the disruption from strikes, these regulations deliver a manifesto promise and will enable employers to reduce the impact from strikes.

“As the Government, we have a duty to ensure the public can access key services, and while it is important workers maintain their ability to strike, this must not come at the cost of people getting to work, accessing healthcare or education.”

Regulations on minimum service levels during strikes come into force

Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent
Fri, 8 December 2023



The first regulations aimed at ensuring minimum levels of service during strikes have come into force, the Government announced on Friday.

Ministers said the regulations are set to apply in the rail sector, border security and ambulance services.

For the railways, minimum service levels will mean that rail operators can aim to run 40% of their normal timetable during any strike.


For a strike affecting infrastructure services, certain key routes will also be able to stay open and for longer than is normally the case during strikes, said the Government.

A Statutory Code of Practice has also come into force which sets out the “reasonable” steps trade unions should take to ensure their members comply with work notices.

Where minimum service level regulations are in place and strike action is called, employers can issue work notices to identify people who are “reasonably required to work” to ensure minimum service levels are met.

The law requires unions to ensure their members who are identified with a work notice comply, and if they fail to do this, they will lose legal protection from damages claims.

The Government has raised the maximum damages that courts can award against a union for unlawful strike action. For the biggest unions, the maximum award has risen from £250,000 to £1 million.

Rail minister Huw Merriman said: “Strikes cause stress and disruption to passengers and businesses and, whilst there is no silver bullet to mitigating the disruption from strikes, these regulations deliver a manifesto promise and will enable employers to reduce the impact from strikes.

“As the Government, we have a duty to ensure the public can access key services, and while it is important workers maintain their ability to strike, this must not come at the cost of people getting to work, accessing healthcare or education.”

The announcement was made ahead of a special TUC conference on Saturday to discuss union opposition to the new regulations, which they say are unworkable and illegal.

Labour has pledged to repeal the new law if it wins the next general election.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “The fight against this draconian legislation doesn’t stop here – unions won’t rest until these laws are repealed.

“That’s why we are calling this weekend’s once in a generation special Congress.

“Unions will be discussing how we take on these spiteful new laws and how we step up resistance and campaigning.

“These new Conservative anti-strike laws are unworkable, undemocratic and likely in breach of international law.

“They represent an unprecedented attack on the right to strike – and they’ll poison industrial relations and drag out disputes.”

SpaceX Opened Up Space. Now It’s ‘Near Monopolistic.’

By Al Root
BARRONS
Dec 08, 2023

SpaceX pioneered reusable rockets. ln the process it lowered the cost to reach space, generated billions in value, and restored launch dominance to America.

Its success also enabled several space start-ups to raise money—and could be the biggest headwind those companies face down the road.


SpaceX will launch about half of the rockets reaching orbit in 2023 and will carry more than 80% of the mass reaching orbit this year, according to CEO Elon Musk.

“SpaceX’s launch business is near monopolistic right now,” wrote William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma in a Friday report.

SpaceX’s competitors include United Launch Alliance, or ULA, with Vulcan Centaur. ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The others on DiPalma’s list are Blue Origin with New Glenn, Rocket Lab with Neutron, Relativity Space with Terran R, and ABL with RS1. Rocket Lab USA  RKLB 2.13% is publicly traded.
Astra Space  ASTR  1.56% also is publicly traded, but didn’t make DiPalma’s list. Neither did Arianespace, which is the space launch joint venture of Airbus

SpaceX’s launch franchise is so dominant Amazon.com is using it to send its Kuiper satellites into orbit. Those satellites will offer space-based Wi-Fi and will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service.

Selling capacity to Amazon shows SpaceX isn’t a true monopoly—it is just better at launching rockets than anyone else.

Competitors such as Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, and Astra should be able to generate launch business. SpaceX can’t carry everything. But if they can’t match SpaceX’s costs, then profits from carrying things to space will be elusive.

“Competition from SpaceX represents the bear thesis for nearly the entire space industry,” added DiPalma.

Europe is no one's vassal, 'relaxed' Xi Jinping tells EU leaders in Beijing


South China Morning Post
Fri, December 8, 2023 

EU leaders are arriving back in Brussels with few concrete deliverables but a sense that Beijing is in no doubt as to the problems in their relations - and that this time they listened.

At Thursday's summit, the Europeans felt their concerns were being taken seriously by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang compared to recent interactions - one of which was famously panned as a "dialogue of the deaf" - even if they remain far apart on core issues like trade and Russia.

When European Council President Charles Michel travelled to Beijing a year ago, he was subjected to long lectures from Xi on topics ranging from the United States, to Taiwan, to human rights.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

This time, there were no such diatribes. A "relaxed and non-confrontational" Xi told Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that China considers Europe to be a "pole" in its own right, and certainly not a "vassal" of anyone, according to several people briefed on the talks.

This minor semantic play will give Europe ammunition to counter claims often made by Chinese diplomats that it is beholden to the United States, and is partly viewed as a product of a relative stabilisation in US-China ties in recent weeks too.

The EU went to China with a few big asks. One was to rebalance a lopsided trading relationship that saw the EU trade deficit double in two years and to address overcapacity and subsidies in the Chinese economy. They want Beijing to stop its firms circumventing sanctions on Russia, and to re-engage with Kyiv-backed talks with which it has dabbled, but failed to commit to in the long term.

On none of these issues did they feel they were completely shut down by Xi and Li, even if the needle remains substantially unmoved across the board.

There is a sense that Beijing's top leadership is concerned about swirling economic headwinds and wants desperately to avoid a full-blown trade war with the EU. Xi himself raised the Moody's downgrade warning for China's credit rating on Tuesday, saying it showed how the West fails to understand the world's second biggest economy.

He was warned in return that the EU market will not remain open forever if Beijing's policies do not change. China was asked to rein in bank lending and lower production targets for some manufacturing sectors.

The Europeans were told that China's policies are compatible with its own legal system. But the message received by some in Brussels is: domestic policies can change, even if Beijing will not structurally change its economic path.

"Politically, European leaders will not be able to tolerate that our industrial base is undermined by unfair competition," said von der Leyen at a press conference on Thursday.

On trade, the Chinese leadership agreed to work in technical groups with EU officials to discuss overcapacity, which Europe feels will result in cheap Chinese hi-tech goods landing in its relatively open market.

When the Europeans raised the 1,000-plus issues flagged by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, Li said he was not aware of them, but committed to having his staff work through them in detail with EU staff.

"Will it solve the problem on its own? No. Is it a step in the right direction? Of course," said one well-placed source.

Brussels is hugely concerned about China's growing capacity as a carmaker, with a probe ongoing into state subsidies for electric vehicles. On Thursday, the Chinese leadership pointed out that Volkswagen sells only 20 per cent of its cars in Germany, so what's the difference?

"They came with a lot of data and arguments, not to accept our opposition, but to counter argue. When we talk about excess capacity, excess what does it mean, excess in respect to what?" said a third EU official.

There is no expectation that China will move away from its long-standing policy of using state subsidies to promote priority sectors. "Why would they? This is their growth model," said a fourth official.


European Council President Charles Michel, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua alt=European Council President Charles Michel, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua>

But through technical groups - an idea floated by von der Leyen - it is hoped that Brussels can point to specific pain points in the Chinese economy, and that there may be some policy tweaks that could lessen the impact.

There will be suspicions that Beijing is buying time, trying to avoid opening another front with Europe when its own economy is struggling, and enabling its companies to pump more goods into the EU market before access diminishes.

But at the same time, Brussels is willing to offer that time - it too would prefer not to engage in economic warfare with such a powerful opponent, and its industries have largely asked the commission to pursue diplomatic resolutions.

On Russia, the EU presented Xi and Li with a list of 13 companies accused of selling European-made dual-use goods to the Russian military. These are turning up on the battlefield and killing Ukrainians, they said.

Xi told the Europeans he was "attentive" to this, according to several sources familiar with the discussion, and said that China has an export control regime of its own. So whereas there was little expectation that Xi would admit any wrongdoing on Beijing's part, Brussels is pleased that he was "happy to engage".

Von der Leyen told the Chinese leadership that she understood not all of the circumvention was being done by Chinese companies. In June, for instance, it was discovered that Russian entities registered in mainland China and Hong Kong were among the biggest culprits.

This is seen as a way of allowing Beijing to tackle the problem while saving face, but it remains to be seen whether it will put a stop to it.

There was no firm commitment to return to Ukraine-backed peace talks, but nor was it dismissed out of hand. It is thought that Beijing prefers to engage in smaller formats on matters like this.

The Chinese side wanted to find a way of mutually lifting bilateral sanctions introduced in 2021, after the EU targeted officials accused of orchestrating mass human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The stumbling bloc there, however, is that the EU does not see the situation improving in the western Chinese region.

On Taiwan, Xi got reassurances that Brussels would not support any move for independence, and in return they feel like Beijing understood that altering the status quo by any means - including force - would have serious consequences.

"We are opposed to any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force. The EU maintains its one-China policy and I trust that China is fully aware of the serious consequences of any escalation in this area," Michel told reporters - a message he also delivered behind closed doors.

Discussions on the Middle East were described as "constructive", while Michel asked for Beijing's help to investigate the rupture of a Finnish-Estonian gas pipeline, with suspicion centred on a Chinese ship that was operating in the area.

Xi reacted positively to the request, and officials found him unusually engaged - briefed on technical matters that would ordinarily reside with underlings. Sources are doubtful that the summit will alter the downward trajectory in the relationship, but in Brussels it proved that the adage rings true: it's good to talk.


Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

DHL Express U.S. air hub workers strike during holiday rush

Thu, December 7, 2023 

Employees carry DHL delivery package inside the new DHL Express hub near Paris

By Lisa Baertlein

(Reuters) - More than 1,100 newly organized DHL Express workers at the delivery company's main U.S. air hub went on strike on Thursday to protest unfair labor practices and stalled contract talks.

The strike threatens to delay packages during the critical peak holiday shipping season when package carriers like DHL, FedEx and United Parcel Service see volumes spike.

It also comes as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters intensify organizing activity in the wake of this summer's closely watched contract deal at UPS, the world's biggest delivery firm.

The workers, who load and unload DHL Express airplanes at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), voted to organize with the Teamsters in April. They have been negotiating their first contract with DHL since July.

"DHL Express was fully prepared for this anticipated tactic and has enacted contingency plans" to ensure that service is not disrupted, the company said in a statement. Those plans include using replacement staff at the hub and moving flights and volume away from CVG to other DHL locations throughout the Americas region.

The company, a division of Germany's Deutsche Post AG, said it expects the strike to garner "sympathy support" at various pickup and delivery locations across the U.S. and that it is prepared to deploy replacement staff.

The union said it has filed numerous unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board during and since the organizing campaign, including for retaliation against pro-union workers. It also said the NLRB is prosecuting the company civilly.

"This company's repeated acts of disrespect — from the tarmac where we work to the bargaining table — leave me and my co-workers with no choice but to withhold our labor," said Gina Kemp, a striking ramp and tug worker.

DHL Express said the Teamsters are using the strike to pressure the company to agree to "unreasonable" contract terms.

"While there is no agreed deadline for these contract negotiations, we are committed to working in good faith at the December negotiating sessions and have offered further negotiating dates in January to conclude this matter," DHL Express said.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Over 1,100 DHL Express workers start strike

Aislinn Murphy

FOX
Fri, December 8, 2023 

A group of unionized DHL Express workers on Thursday started a strike.

As part of the labor action, DHL Express saw over 1,100 of its ramp and tug workers at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport engage in the work stoppage at that site. That airport serves as a global hub for the parcel delivery company.

Those who went on strike are unionized under the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which said in a press release that its DHL members total over 6,000 across the country.

The headquarters of Deutsche Post AG, the world's largest global delivery company, is pictured on March 14, 2006, in Bonn, Germany. Deutsche Post, launching its new initiative "First Choice," made a profit of 3.76 billion euros in 2005, an increase of 25.1 percent. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)

With the strike, the Teamsters said the DHL Express workers aimed to "protest unfair labor practices and demand the company negotiate a fair contract." Negotiations between the ramp and tug workers, who are seeking "improved pay and working conditions," and the company first kicked off during the summer, according to another Teamsters press release.

"The company forced this work stoppage, but DHL has the opportunity to right this wrong by respecting our members and coming to terms on a strong contract," Local 100 President Bill Davis said in a press release, calling for the company to "give workers their fair share."

FOX Business reached out to the Teamsters for additional comment on the strike.

Cargo planes are unloaded during the overnight sort at the DHL Worldwide Express hub of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Kentucky, on Friday, August 1, 2014. Three of the biggest delivery companies, including DHL Worldwide Express, have released environmental data that show their overall emissions of global warming gases are declining slightly. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesMore

The unionized DHL workers have accused the company of "push[ing] insulting demands that disrespect workers and fail to address the unfair labor practices that include retaliating against pro-union workers." The National Labor Relations Board has received multiple complaints lodged by the Teamsters against DHL, according to the union.

Thursday’s strike came after the option to engage in one received approval from the unionized DHL workers earlier in the week

"DHL Express remains committed to working with the US Teamsters and agreeing to a contract for the portion of the CVG employees they represent," the company said in a statement to FOX Business. "While there is no agreed deadline for these contract negotiations, we are committed to working in good faith at the December negotiating sessions and have offered further negotiating dates in January to conclude this matter."

The company said the "vast majority" of its CVG-based workers worked on Thursday. It also said that the Teamsters, whom it accused of attempting to "influence" and "pressure" the company into "unreasonable contract terms" via the strike, have "expanded their picket lines to other DHL Express locations in the United States" on Friday, something it had anticipated as a possibility.

A DHL (European Air Transport) Airbus 300-600F landing at Frankfurt airport. (Photo by Fabrizio Gandolfo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

DHL Express implemented "contingency plans" to "ensure that our customers receive the usual high level of service they are accustomed to from DHL Express at this critical time of the year for their businesses," according to its statement to FOX Business. The company does not expect any significant service disruptions.

The company has taken steps, including switching flights and volume to other DHL locations from CVG and "deploying replacement staff in other locations," according to DHL Express.

On top of the global hub in Cincinnati, DHL Express has other facilities around the U.S., including in smaller hubs in Atlanta and Miami.

Germany-based DHL Group, which DHL Express falls under, employs several hundred thousand people around the world.

UPS fires about 35 newly organized US workers, Teamsters union says

Reuters
Updated Thu, December 7, 2023 




LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The Teamsters union that represents U.S. workers at United Parcel Service on Thursday said it would respond to the firing of about 35 newly organized workers at the delivery company by filing unfair labor practice charges and potentially striking.

The roughly three dozen affected specialist and administrative workers at UPS's Centennial hub in Louisville, Kentucky, organized with Teamsters Local 89 this autumn, the union said.

UPS in a statement said that a small number of employees are being laid off at its Louisville Centennial Hub as it matches staffing with business needs.

"UPS respects our employees' rights to organize and we have not committed any unfair labor practices," the company said.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien in a statement said that UPS laid off those workers despite the ruling of an independent arbitrator and falsely claimed that their work should be performed by management.

"If UPS doesn't get its act together, they'll be on strike next. Our union will not hesitate to act, and we will not back down," said O'Brien, who represented some 340,000 UPS workers in a contract deal reached earlier this year.

UPS said its ratified contract covering Teamsters-represented workers remains intact.

"We are committed to working with the Teamsters to resolve this separate matter with a small number of employees at Centennial," UPS said, adding that it does not expect disruptions to its Louisville operations.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Jamie Freed)